We came up from Abingdon todayin a bit of a convoy - three, sometimes four of us meeting up at each lock. As it happens we were first in Abingdon lock, so first out and away. This week I've been a bit conscious that most boats seem to go a bit faster than us, so today we wound Herbie up to warp factor 7 (1800 rpm) in a bid to not hold up the others. Using my patent Herbiesoft Speedo Android phone app,
it looked like we were getting up to an amazing 4.6 mph at times. Kath was downstairs shouting "She canna take any more Captain" while I struggled with the G forces on the command deck.
When we got to Iffley lock I said to the lady on the next boat, "We weren't holding you up were we? That's about as quick as we can manage."
"Blimey no,"she said," you were going really fast, we could barely keep up!"
Aah well we've slowed down now to our customary 1400 rpm and at last we're on the "upper" Thames where the pace of life is more leisurely. Tonight, having departed Oxford via the amazing vastness of
Port Meadow, we dine al fresco on the moorings below Eynsham lock. ( That's spelt K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M only without the K.(apologies to anyone below about 65 years old who won't get that joke.))
Tomorrow we venture into waters hitherto unpenetrated by Herbie. I'm particularly keen to revisit my old haunt of Newbridge where the lovely river Windrush ( possibly named after a ship full of Jamaicans) joins the Thames. There we shall have the dilemma of choosing whether to give our patronage to The Maybush or The Rose Revived, or I suppose we could do both.
it looked like we were getting up to an amazing 4.6 mph at times. Kath was downstairs shouting "She canna take any more Captain" while I struggled with the G forces on the command deck.
When we got to Iffley lock I said to the lady on the next boat, "We weren't holding you up were we? That's about as quick as we can manage."
"Blimey no,"she said," you were going really fast, we could barely keep up!"
Aah well we've slowed down now to our customary 1400 rpm and at last we're on the "upper" Thames where the pace of life is more leisurely. Tonight, having departed Oxford via the amazing vastness of
Port Meadow, we dine al fresco on the moorings below Eynsham lock. ( That's spelt K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M only without the K.(apologies to anyone below about 65 years old who won't get that joke.))
Tomorrow we venture into waters hitherto unpenetrated by Herbie. I'm particularly keen to revisit my old haunt of Newbridge where the lovely river Windrush ( possibly named after a ship full of Jamaicans) joins the Thames. There we shall have the dilemma of choosing whether to give our patronage to The Maybush or The Rose Revived, or I suppose we could do both.
2 comments:
We loved the wild moorings above Eynsham Lock. I don’t know if it’s still the case, but the lockie at the time told us that after the bridge, if you stop in the first field you get charged, but after the fence it’s free. There are lots of single-narrowboat-shaped scallops out of the bank, and you just pick the one you like the look of.
Hope you don’t get the 40mph winds predicted for up here tomorrow...
Good old Horace Batchelor and his Infra-Draw Method of winning the pools in the 1950's and '60's. Guess I qualify for the over 65's - yeah and the rest!
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